A very good book to read on this subject is the Evolution
of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod. It discribes a tournament
between lots of computers playing the Prisoners Dillema game.
In the game each contestant can either cooperate or defect
and the scores each player gets after each round go something
like:
c d c 5,5 7,0
d 0,7 1,1
i.e. if both player cooperate they both get high scores but if
one cooperates and the other defects the defector gets lots of
and the cooperator gets none. If both defect then they both loose
out.
This game can be thought of a a simple model for many situations,
compeating species being one.
In the tournament each player had a particular stratergy for
example always defecting. All the players played several rounds
against each other player. And the scores were tallied.
At the end a tit-for-tat stratergy won out, i.e. start off
cooperating, and then do what the opponant did on the previous move.
Basically cooperative stratergies can win out in the long run
over selfish ones. But you will need to read the book for more.
Rich
